Trail Stops

Clearwater, FL 33756

https://maps.app.goo.gl/NhswdrtJDa1uYtN98

     The city of Clearwater is named in "Gainesville," a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song recorded in 1998 yet not released until the 2018 posthumous box set "An American Treasure." Here is that lyric:

"Bird dog in the high grass

Dancers all along the wall

We got down to Clearwater

You're okay anywhere you fall."

     You can watch the nostalgic video for it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6NxbUzNM5U

Photo courtesy of Visit St. Pete/Clearwater

Orlando, FL 32801

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ATCcfx1wPV1TipKe7

     Orlando (and Atlanta) is named in "Southern Accents," a Tom Petty song on the 1985 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album of the same name. While you'd be hard-pressed to find an orange grove in or near Orlando today, here is that lyric:

"Now that drunk tank in Atlanta's

Just a motel room to me

Think I might go work Orlando

If them orange groves don't freeze

I got my own way of workin'

But everything is run, 

with a southern accent

Where I come from"

     Here you can listen to a live performance at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center in Gainesville by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on their 30th anniversary tour in 2006:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGA7akHkk4E

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons 

Cassadaga, FL 32706

https://maps.app.goo.gl/WViuqZasTqtUAppi6

     Cassadaga is a spiritualist community dating back to 1894, that today is called by some the "Psychic Capital of the World." The town became the basis for the Heartbreakers song "Casa Dega," although spelled differently. Here is part of that lyric:

"That she said to me as she holds my hand

And reads the lines of a stranger

Yeah and she knows my name 

yeah she knows my plan

In the past in the present and for the future

Oh honey now I think I'm starting to believe the things that I've heard

Cause tonight in Casa Dega I hang on every word"

     Here you can watch a video of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performing it on New Year's Eve 1978 in Santa Monica, Calif.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcdFjuV4bNc

Photo by Shawn Murphy

12771 FL-45, Archer, FL 32618

https://maps.app.goo.gl/1nkC6p1S7xdyZ1Uc7

     A convenience store and gas station, located in the town of Archer, is at the crossroads of State Route 24 and U.S. 41, a north-to-south road that became a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' song, "U.S. 41," on their 2010 album "Mojo," an old-style blues song that would have made Archer resident Bo Diddley, and Tom Petty friend, proud. Here is part of that lyric:

"Well, all my life's been workin'

Out the door and gone

Got to make that overtime

Keep us movin' on

I need a drink of water

Get out of the sun

Burnin' up to make that wage

On U.S. 41

That's right, U.S. 41"

     To listen to the song, go here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q9cHaA9UM0

Photo by Shawn Murphy

Punta Gorda, FL 33980 to Arcadia, FL 34266

https://maps.app.goo.gl/rRuXaYcS5RZzEAwX7

     King's Highway is an actual roadway on the southern Gulf of Mexico coast of Florida. A stretch of state route 769, which runs from Charlotte Harbor to a rural crossroads 18 miles northeast of there, is named Kings Highway, which is the title of a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' song from the 1991 album "Into the Great Wide Open." The lyrics envision a utopian place down the road where the narrator wishes to bring his girl. Part of the lyric reads: "When the time gets right 

I'm gonna pick you up 

And take you far away 

From trouble my love 

Under a big old sky 

Out in a field of green 

There's gotta be something 

Left for us to believe 

Oh, I await the day 

Good fortune comes our way 

And we'll ride down the King's Highway" 

     You can watch a video of a live performance by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers here: https://youtu.be/OdqDeBzqlP0 

Photo courtesy of AARoads

Crystal River, FL 34423

https://maps.app.goo.gl/9EnFhL6i3XKHTEXW8

     Crystal River, a small city located on Florida's Gulf Coast, is home to crystal-clear, spring-fed rivers and estuaries that attract manatees to its temperate waters in what is today Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge and Crystal River Preserve State Park.  

"Crystal River," a song from Mudcrutch's 2008 self-titled album, includes this lyric:

"Crystal river

Got a woman on the other side...

And nothin' can touch me here

On crystal river...

She's sleeping

Sleeping by the water side

She's sleeping

Out there on that bank...

And nothin' can touch me here...

On crystal river"

     You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_hj69VsiIM

Photo courtesy of Forbes magazine and Wake and Wander Media

Clay County, Florida (county seat is Green Cove Springs, FL 32043)

https://maps.app.goo.gl/yiDfWvB5Fy62frWz9

     Green Cove Springs is the government seat for Clay County. The county name was worked into "Melinda," a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' song, which can be found in the "Live Anthology" box set from 2009. The song, written by Benmont Tench and Tom Petty, includes the following passage:

“I would give the moon and sun

Just to see Melinda

The earth and all the sky

To be there with Melinda

And I just don't care, what you got to say

Cause I'm getting up in the morning

And I'm going to see Melinda

Yes I'm through with Clay County

You never done a thing for me”

     In Keystone Heights, a town in southern Clay County, there is located the Keystone Beach Historic Pavilion where in 1964 or 1965 a concert was held by the Sundowners, a band from Gainesville in Alachua County, approximately 25 miles southwest of the pavilion. On bass guitar and sometimes on vocals in the Sundowners was Tom Petty. Keith Harben, Tom's childhood friend, told me that at the time Tom was seeing a girl named Melinda from here in Keystone Heights, Clay County, a fact that may have been inspiration for a lyrical thread in the "Melinda" song that crafts a mysterious story. 

     Here you can listen to that live recording:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmQMiIJ8yVA

Photo courtesy of Clay County

Tampa, FL 33602

https://maps.app.goo.gl/VQg2PUyBpHpeBwEt5

     This city is named in "The Bus To Tampa Bay," a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song recorded in 2011 yet not released until the 2018 posthumous box set "An American Treasure." Here is that lyric:

"Beneath the shade the hired hands are talking

Down the highway a lonely woman walking

The prisoner of a dream that she's been stuck in

And I'm waiting for the bus to Tampa Bay"

     You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW9DgstlfaY

Photo courtesy of Visit Tampa Bay

Everglades National Park, Florida

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Doi4rZSTfTrJHnt58

     The Everglades are cited in "The Bus To Tampa Bay," a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song recorded in 2011 yet not released until the 2018 posthumous box set "An American Treasure." 

     The mention of the Everglades comes in conjunction with the warrior Osceola, who during the Second Seminole War helped lead the resistance against the U.S. government, which was trying to take away Native land in Florida and forcibly remove them to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Here is that lyric:

"There's a map of Osceola and his Raiders

Fighting off the Everglades Invaders

He burnt them down, he left them for the gators

And there's maybe something better down the road"

     You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW9DgstlfaY

     In Everglades National Park, and elsewhere in Florida, you are bound to see an alligator. After all, as Tom Petty sang, "every other day I got a gator on my lawn," which was an outtake from the studio sessions for the 1981 album "Hard Promises." Here is where you can listen to that song, "Gator On the Lawn":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZABzLa2WRf4

Photo courtesy of Conservancy of Southwest Florida

St. Augustine, FL 32084

https://maps.app.goo.gl/a2z99hZnFL3b8VAV9

     Osceola is named in "The Bus To Tampa Bay," a Tom Petty song recorded in 2011 yet not released until the 2018 posthumous box set "An American Treasure." During the Second Seminole War, the warrior Osceola helped lead the resistance against the U.S. government, which was trying to take away Native land in Florida and forcibly remove them to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. It was in St. Augustine where Osceola was deceived by the pretext of a truce and peace talks, only to be arrested and imprisoned here. Here is that lyric:

"There's a map of Osceola and his Raiders

Fighting off the Everglades Invaders

He burnt them down, he left them for the gators

And there's maybe something better down the road"

     You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW9DgstlfaY

     To learn more about Osceola, go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osceola

Photo courtesy of Visit Florida

Lake City, FL 32025

https://maps.app.goo.gl/7Dg9DNQZJKjPTZxr9 

     Lake City is named in "The Wrong Thing To Do," a song from Mudcrutch's 2008 self-titled album. Here is that lyric:

"Well I was flying half mast

On the 4th of July

In a bar in Lake City

With a western tie

And I was thinkin' hard

About changin' my name

And headed for Miami

When the daylight came"

     Here you can watch a video of Mudcrutch performing this song in 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmGEcDnaIG4

     Note that the 1970s lineup of Mudcrutch (which included future Heartbreakers Tom Petty and Mike Campbell) is reported to have played in a country-western bar (name and address unknown to me) in Lake City in the early 1970s.  Mudcrutch is also reported to have played in Lake City, according to Benmont Tench (who joined Mudcrutch and then the Heartbreakers), who recalled seeing them “at the Astro Lounge in Lake City in 1971 or ’72” and he “got to sit in with and then join” (name and address unknown to me).

Photo courtesy of Visit Natural North Florida 

Miami, FL 33132

https://maps.app.goo.gl/P6RUZJq37tRW6Jb5A

     The city of Miami is named in "The Wrong Thing To Do," a song from Mudcrutch's 2008 self-titled album. Here is that lyric:

"Well I was flying half mast

On the 4th of July

In a bar in Lake City

With a western tie

And I was thinkin' hard

About changin' my name

And headed for Miami

When the daylight came"

     Here you can watch a video of Mudcrutch performing this song in 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmGEcDnaIG4

Photo courtesy of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau